As I sat on the front steps of the building which used to house Richard's News (a magazine store in Portsmouth), I reflected that the building had appeared several times in my dreams, and I decided that in the future, when I had dreams about Richard's News, and wrote the dreams on my web page, I would configure a hyperlink to the name, and give a brief description of the place. This plan was part of an ongoing effort to hyperlink many place names in my dreams, not only to make the dreams more understandable to people who read my dreams, but to aid me in trying to understand why certain places continually reappeared in my dreams.

Richard's News was no longer housed in this building where I was waiting; instead, the ground floor had been converted into an apartment, where Birdie was now living, and I was waiting for Birdie.

Finally, I saw her. Only about 20 meters from the front of the building was a lake, and Birdie and my sister were walking together along the shore of the lake. Birdie looked as if she might be in her mid 30s, and my sister was probably about 10 years younger than Birdie. Birdie was dressed in a colorful pastel blue dress, something like she used to wear when we were teenagers.

Suddenly, Birdie and my sister began having an argument, which quickly turned violent. Before my astonished eyes, Birdie picked up my sister in the air and threw her out into the lake, almost two meters from the shore. My sister quickly recovered, regained her feet and stormed back at Birdie. With agile ferocity, my sister doubled her fist and slugged Birdie in the face. Birdie was stunned for a moment, but quickly recovered. Birdie then began rapidly spinning round and round, perhaps 10 times, like a dervish or an animated cartoon. Worried what Birdie might do to my sister, I called out to my sister and told her to get away as quickly as she could. My sister wasted no time; she made a speedy exit.

***

Birdie and I were inside the apartment, lying on her comfortable bed. We were both fully clothed and simply talking in a friendly manner. I was happy to see her again, and felt close, if not intimate, to her. She told me that she was living in Montgomery, Alabama, and that she was no longer married. I asked if she had changed her name back to "Presley," and she said no, her last name now was "Maxwell," a name which I had never heard.

I reflected that I also was no longer married. It seemed strange; here we both were unmarried, with so much history between us, and yet I knew our becoming intimate again was simply not feasible. Besides, Birdie was so much prettier than I. She had hardly aged over the years, while I seemed to have become less and less attractive.

I asked what she had been doing lately and she began talking about some scam she had been running, and how every time she pulled the scam she made $1,000. I could relate to what she was saying and told her that she and I were both con artists, although I thought to myself that $1,000 wasn't much money, and that I made more money with my schemes. But I enjoyed hearing her talk, and I complemented her by saying, "What stories you tell."

I asked her how long she would be staying in Portsmouth and she told me she would be leaving on Wednesday, just two days away. I was surprised and disappointed. I thought she would be staying much longer, and that we would be able to see more of each other.

But I wasn't so much interested in seeing more of Birdie, as I was interested in something else. At this point, I had one major thought in my mind: Brandi. I desperately wanted to find out where Brandi was and contact her. If Birdie would only tell me where Brandi was, maybe I could finally get a blood test and ascertain whether Brandi was actually my child. I could feel a pressure in my chest, a pain, a desire to finally put this issue to rest.

I didn't know how to approach Birdie. Should I tell her I had learned that Brandi was somewhere in Colorado, probably around Denver, and that she was enrolled in college? Should I threaten Birdie that if she didn't tell me where Brandi was, I would track Brandi down anyway? I decided it would be best not to threaten, at least not yet. First, I would try to coax the information out of Birdie. If that failed, I would resort to other methods.

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Copyright 2010 by Steve Collier